McCain: Warmonger AND whoremonger?

As John McCain rambles about the country revisiting old haunts to showcase his warrior cred, the love-struck press corps performs its role in the Magical Maverick Mystery Tour, helping gild the legend of the Greatest American Hero Patriot Evah. It's striking sometimes to read their stenographic reports and imagine for a moment what the reporter might seize on if he were covering a candidate other than McCain. Take this interesting biographic tidbit, for example:

There aren't too many politicians in America who would dare admit they
once frequented a strip club. Fewer still would cop to dating one of the
dancers, especially if she had a nickname like the "Flame of Florida," or a
habit of packing a switchblade in her purse. And among that select crowd, there
are barely any who call themselves conservative Republicans, or would ever dare
dream of running for President.

But then, this nation has historically afforded certain privileges to
its military personnel, and the old Navy flyer John McCain is confident he has
earned a pass. "I enjoyed every single moment of my life here," he announced in
a prepared speech Wednesday in Pensacola, Fla., "from learning to fly to blowing
my pay at Trader Jon's."

The otherwise conservative crowd of more than a thousand supporters
burst into approving applause and laughter at the mention of their storied
downtown watering hole, which had dancing girls back when McCain served in the
area as a young pilot. McCain's own knowing smile only added to the moment.

"I remember with affection the unruly passions of youth," he said
Monday in Meridian, Miss., where he once helped organize an off-base toga party
— the furniture swapped out for mattresses — for his military buddies and some
local girls.

The writer is Time's Michael Scherer, who told us all we'll ever need to know about his objectivity on McCain when he wrote:

Here's one thing you need to know about John McCain. He's always been the
coolest kid in school. He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval
Academy. He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost
dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal. His first wife was a model. His second
wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior. He kept himself together during years
of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement. When he sits in the back
of his campaign bus, we reporters gather like kids in the cafeteria huddling
around the star quarterback. We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him
slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the
challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than
us.

So how would Scherer have titled the headline to an article in which a candidate other than McCain had revealed he swapped furniture for mattresses while arranging a toga party for compatriots and local chicks? "Hillary Hustled Hos for Bros?" "Obama Pimped Red-Hot Mamas?" Somehow, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been as pedestrian as "McCain: Loving His Misspent Youth."

Once this interminable Democratic primary contest finally ends, it'll be interesting to directly compare the coverage McCain gets with that whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee receives. Will it finally become widely known, for example, that the current Mrs. McCain once pilfered narcotics from her own charity to feed her drug habit? Or will the press continue to focus obsessively on whether or not Michelle Obama is sufficiently proud to be an American?

I think we know the answer to that already. Digby was spot-on when she wrote, "Pushing back on biased, anti-Democrat and pro-Republican lies and editorial judgment is supposed to be one of our [bloggers'] primary raison d'etres... The press is in love with McCain, that...is very dangerous for Democrats and...we need to work hard to combat that, starting now while the Democrats are still settling their primary."

Amen, sister. I don't give a crap that McCain hooked up with some Florida floozies back in the Paleozoic Era. God knows there are plenty to go around, and it's been a carpetbagger tradition for ages. It doesn't really bother me that McCain's trophy wife used to scarf down handfuls of Vicodin either -- hell, if I were married to an ancient comb-over gnome, I might raid the medicine cabinet myself.

What bothers me is the blatant double standard in how the candidates are treated. Digby is right -- even bloggers with a readership of two like yours truly need to call the bastards out on the unfair treatment. If we don't do it, who will? Not Michael Scherer.